Every day, life presents us with choices. We can either align with the fears and grudges of childhood or with our better instincts.

The choices we make in life add up. We either crystallize into a distorted false self or into an emancipated true self.

Of course, choices rooted in the traumas of childhood are not good choices. Rather, they are guided by the hurt child’s fantasies of rescue and revenge, induced by past events, mainly unresolved parental wounds from long ago.

When we choose out of our healed adult self, our life begins to evolve into new meaning and higher consciousness. It’s almost as if we no longer have a choice. We’re compelled to make good choices that serve our best interests and the best interests of all, including the natural world.

At times, as we grow, old wounds emerge and we are tempted to make poor choices. In these moments, we must pause and review our traumatic history with compassion. As we revisit, feel, and grieve old wounds, we are released again to choose wisely.

And our good choices add up. We become a whole person living a whole and holy life.

Living fully in the present is not possible until we resolve our past. Only when we face and grieve the harm we experienced during childhood, especially the harm caused by the shortcomings of our parents, can we fulfill life’s promise embedded within us.

Embracing the strengths of mother and father is easy. More difficult is owning and grieving their weaknesses, their failures, even their crimes against us when we were young. But this effort is necessary, if we are to live true. If we refuse to do this work, unnamed forces will haunt our present, poison our future and prevent our deepest fulfillment.

Every child needs perfect parents. If parents are not perfect, meaning these parents carry unresolved trauma from their own childhood, they will hurt their child. Any wound that is unresolved will leak through. This is child abuse.

Sadly, no one had perfect parents. We are all abused children which explains so much, if not all, of the world’s insanity. Collectively, humans are a traumatized species, often hard to see since this is the norm. Continue reading →

The holiday is both a source of cultural delight and pain. The bespangled pine trees, holiday cards and greetings, the lights strung in store windows and across streets and byways, the gifts, the food, the cookies and candy, the carols—all add to the holiday’s festive flare. Continue reading →

True growth is vertical. A rare few soar to new heights of self-awareness, as they dig deep into themselves to heal repressed trauma and liberate buried magnificence. This profound dialogue between depth and height is the way new consciousness grows. These rare few use love and work to evolve life to the next level of awareness and meaning.

Most people, the unconscious masses, mistakenly call horizontal development—growth. Love and work serve selfish, violent ends that are unsustainable and destructive of life. This is the norm. Continue reading →

Most are not aware of the soul crimes of their ancestors. These betrayals remain unknown, as they are passed unconsciously through the generations.

But some are more sensitive by nature, and feel these wrongs as violations. They question the source of this poison infecting them, since its source feels external to them. As unnamed traumas begin to contaminate these sensitive types, they perceive a grave error, dissonant from their sense-of-self. This discernment can begin in early childhood. Continue reading →

Love enters our being through the heart. Love is a powerful force which compels us to grow beyond the limits of our upbringing. Once away from our unconscious families, we are safe to heal our traumatic history and integrate our fragmented self into a whole person. This integration is the marriage within, in which our human nature weds our higher nature; our instincts wed our ideals. We become a whole person at last, at one with it all.

As economic and ecological collapse looms in our world, we humans must embrace a necessary transition. We must evolve from outer to inner definition. This is the new way. This alone will save our planet home from desolation and our species from extinction. To be part of this timely change, here are some suggestions.

Do’s

Do inner work: Grieve and heal childhood trauma; free yourself to be real.

Today is the first day of a New Year—and a new time in our lives. There is excitement in the air, for the gift we receive today is time—a new day, a new year, another chance to heal and grow. Time is the medium of evolution allowing the unfolding of life’s purpose. The days of this New Year, used consciously, will awaken our purpose and lead to our enlightenment.

Time used constructively heals the wounds that would crush our life’s expression.

Time used mindfully carries us like a mighty river to our depth.

Time used consciously transforms life experience into wisdom and illumination.

No wonder we’re excited at the prospects of this New Year and its gift of time.

It takes time to heal. We must proceed slowly, day by day, unraveling the damage that confounds the full expression of our identity. Our wounds run deep for they were inflicted practically from our first breath. The painstaking work of loving all the lost parts of ourselves back to life, vitality, and full expression must be done slowly, day by day, throughout this bright New Year.

Today we begin the journey back to our self and to truth. We take the hand of our frightened inner child who was shamed into believing it was of little value and hold this child in our care and protection. We comfort this terrified child, buried within us, who hid for safe-keeping until this very moment. We open the prison gates with our love and breathe life into this forgotten existence.

Today we begin a sacred journey through a New Year. Slowly, through the days of this new time, we develop our dishonored child into the fulfilled adult that life intended.

This bright New Year with gratitude, humility and love, I begin a new time in my life.